InstaVR Interviews: Meet the VR Practitioners is a new blog series where we turn the spotlight on our customers. We find out why they create VR, how they use InstaVR, and what the future of VR will look like. If you’d like to be featured in this series, please reach out to our Head of Marketing, Andrew Woodberry – andrew at instavr.co.
Christian Søes, Co-Founder & Creative Director at Immerse
Tell us a bit about your background… where you’re from? What you do for a living?
My name is Christian, and im from Copenhagen, Denmark. I have been running my own video business for the past 4 years, producing content primarily for social media and web. Together with my co-founder Martin, i founded Immerse, a video and 360 video production company.
How did you become interested in Virtual Reality?
1½ ago i was shooting some behind the scenes footage of a 360 video project. It was by then i started to realize what the potential is with this media format. I then started to research what was needed to be able to produce this kind of footage myself.
What tools do you use to capture 360 media?
We have been through several different setups. Starting out with 6 GoPro’s. Then we went to a 13-camera in a custom made 360 helmet rig. This decision proved to be horrible. We would like to do moving 360 videos in a Point of View style. The end result was horrible, and we discovered that less is more. We are now shooting with a rig consisting of 3 GoPro’s with 3 x Entaniya 220 lenses on. This rig is easy and manageable, and giving os waaay less stitch lines, compared to the 13 GoPro solution.
Why is your project better suited for VR vs. traditional media?
360 Video has never really been interesting for me. I’ve been feeling like i was just a spectator to the world i was in, and not really being able to interact. Bringing interaction into 360 videos, gives this format a whole new dimension. Being able to tell a story that differs from the normal A –> B storyline, is what makes VR so much more interesting, than “just” 360 video.
Why did you decide to use InstaVR?
We have long been discussing the challenges with delivery of 360 video. Posting it on Facebook and Youtube, you are almost guaranteed that 90% will watch without a HMD. Besides that, the need for interactivity is crucial, and none of those platforms provided that. Then we went with a Unity developer, to try to get the interactive parts in the video. This was a very time consuming and expensive task. Then we heard of InstaVR, and the possibilities to do the exact things we were missing. Clearly it became a no brainer, and this has given us a whole new set of tools to work with. Both with regards to delivery and prototyping new ideas for projects.
What are you distribution plans? Who is your intended audience?
Education, Travel and Custom Show apps
What’s next up on your VR project list?
We are currently working on a project for education in primary schools. Furthermore we have a music/riddle project.
Where do you see the future of VR? What is the use case that excites you the most?
VR has the potential to be the desired choice of platform in a lot of cases. We belive education in various aspects will be very exciting to follow.
